Humanitarianism in the borderscape: Narratives of state sovereignty, borders, and the refugee in Greece1

• In Event: Dissertation workshop session
  In Special Session: Refugee Education

Proposal

University of Massachusetts Amherst, College of Education
Faculty Advisor: Gretchen Rossman

I am currently in the state of proposal writing (completion by end of October). Since my research is a continuation of field work conducted from 2016-present, I am nonetheless positioned to have significant analysis completed prior to CIES 2019.



Proposal
My research examines narratives of migration and humanitarian response along various key points of the national borders of Greece between 2015-present. These narratives describe experiences of border crossers seeking refuge inside the European Union; state and non-state actors that responded to the refugee crisis of 2015-18; and I/NGO workers, civilians, and volunteers. I aim to use these narratives—collected and collated via various mediums and methods—to situate a theoretical framework of the “borderscape.” Within this framework, I explore political, social, and material practices of the border, as individual actors intersect with larger state and inter-state responses to crisis. I seek to specifically examine experiences with Greek education systems— via its 2016 national policy of integration of refugees—as well as the non-formal programs run by I/NGOs. Ultimately, I use the following broad research questions to guide collaborative processes of research:

- What are the material and political practices that occurred/occur at the Aegean Sea border between Greece and Turkey, and how can these be enlarged to consider experiences of the borderscape of Lesvos and, ultimately, Greece as a whole?
- How does enlargement of the experiences of the border fit within shifting but situated historical and theoretical frameworks of borders, the nation state, and “the refugee”?
- What are the implications for experience and identity of the refugee in transition, stuck in a geographical, political, and individual frozen transience? How do refugees maneuver, resist, and adapt in order to continue their movement on to final destinations?
- How do refugee experiences of education within Greece—in both formal and non-formal spaces—align with or challenge notions of borders, human rights, and inclusion/exclusion?

This research builds on existing scholarship in the fields of border and refugee studies, utilizing participatory and ethnographic methods with emphasis on process as much as product. Experiences of bordering are understood “as within as well as at the edges… with margins as the new centers” (Wilson & Donnan, 2012, p. 13). In addition to finding an epistemological and methodological home within the aforementioned fields, I hope to contribute new conceptualizations of how we may conduct humanitarian research in crisis contexts; how we might collaboratively develop these conceptualizations alongside those caught in, moving across, and constructing/reconstructing notions of human mobilities and politics at the border. Owens (2009) offers a critical interpretation of humanitarianism in the borderscape, noting that “the function of modern international organizations is to manage refugee populations in a manner that does not radically undermine the framework on which the nation state rests” (p. 271). I seek to specifically examine this critique in relation to the boundaries of formal/non-formal education programming and Greek policies of integration.
It is my hope to contribute to the growing, diverse ways in which we speak of borders and of the humans moving across them, as well as to situate such experiences within larger frameworks of rights-based approaches to humanitarianism and, specifically, education in emergencies.

Methods
This research builds on my autoethnographic comprehensive exams paper, in which I critically reflected upon in-depth journal entries compiled during work in Greece from 2016-2017. In 2018-2019, a secondary round of data collection will take place, utilizing three general methodological approaches to collecting and reflecting on data, and iterative/ongoing analysis that prioritizes collaborative processes throughout. These methods are:

1. Semi-structured interviews with refugees: place-based and descriptive; use of arts-based methods such as Photovoice. The priority here was collaborative decision-making at all stages of the field research (from data collection methods to sharing / real time reflection and analysis); story-telling component; ethnography-informed. As Pratt (1995) puts it: “We cannot move theory into action unless we can find it in the eccentric and wandering ways of our daily life…[stories] give theory flesh and breath” (p. 22).
2. Key informant interviews with Greek nationals, coast guard, INGO, and NGO workers: Structured protocols used mainly to further investigate findings from background research and to triangulate incoming data from (1), above.
3. Critical autoethnography: Ongoing reflective journaling of the process; of use/challenges/limitations of collaborative methods; of questions and themes of power and positionality throughout the research process.